Nottingham Forest are out to end a five-match winless streak against Manchester City on Saturday

Head coach Oliver Glasner is striving for a balanced culture and mentality at Nottingham Forest as he works to improve results.

The Austrian has made clear to his players they are not at a “spa and wellness hotel” as they prepare to host Manchester City on Saturday (5.30pm kick-off). But equally, he doesn’t want the environment to be so strict it feels like the Reds are in the “military”.

Glasner pulled no punches in his post-match press conference after last Saturday’s 2-0 defeat at Brentford, warning his squad he was no longer prepared to make “compromises”. A few days on, he was much more measured in tone but remained unequivocal about what he expects from his dressing room.

“It's a topic I think every manager has when he joins a club, especially when you join a club that has not been successful,” Glasner said as he discussed trying to create a culture at Forest. “There's always a reason why things don't work. I also faced this in some former clubs.

Make sure you never miss the latest Nottingham Forest news and opinion by making the Nottingham Post one of your Google preferred sources

“It's always one of the biggest goals I have, to create a culture and environment where you want to be, but where you also want to work hard. We are not a spa and wellness hotel where you like to relax and enjoy. But of course, we are also not the military.

“We need to find an in-between. What I want, and I think it's the most important thing, is to get every player having this intrinsic motivation to want to improve his game, so it's not always the coaching staff who say, ‘We would like to do this, we would like to show you this, we would like to train like this’.

“I would like to be challenged by the players. What can I improve? How can I improve my heading? How can I improve my passing? What's about my positioning? My defending? My fitness?

“In individual sports, like in tennis, it’s always from the player’s side. They say: ‘Hey, I want to improve my serve, I want to improve my volley, I want to improve my backhand, I want to improve my forehand, so what can I do? Come on, coach, tell me, what do I have to do to get better?’ This is what I hope, and I'm pretty sure we will create, that we will be more challenged by the players in the future.”

Forest have picked up just one win in their opening nine league games of the season. In general, they have played well but they currently find themselves in 19th spot.

Speaking about the standards he expects, Glasner referenced the 1969 Woodstock Fair. The Reds cannot thrive on “flower power” alone, he said.

"These are my two values I will never negotiate about, this is trust and respect,” the ex-Crystal Palace boss explained. "It can't be only one. If it's just respect, I would say that's military. Then, after a few months of national service, you are pleased when you can leave.

"When it's just trust, it's flower power, just flying. Everybody can do what he wants and it's nice and great, like Woodstock. But Woodstock is not high performance.

"Military is (high performance), because otherwise this huge organisation couldn't work. I felt we had too much Woodstock.

"We need a good balance between Woodstock, having fun, but also military, high performance. That's the most important thing, high performance, because that's what we get paid for, that's our job. If we have this (balance), we fly."